Acceptability of an education computer multimedia on safe use of medication in patients and family members

Аннотация

The active role of patients and family members in medication safety should be recognized and encouraged. Safety of medication usage is a prerequisite of good quality healthcare [17]. However, medication errors are frequent and are associated with increased costs for treatment [10]. Although the health care industry has redoubled its efforts to improve patient safety in the past decade, patients are usually the victims of medication errors or safety failure and programs for improving safety in medical settings often ignore the patient’s perspective. As a matter of fact, patient should take the active responsibility for their own safety, because patients play an important role in helping an accurate diagnosis, in deciding appropriate treatment, in ensuring that treatment is appropriately administered, monitored and adhered to and in identifying adverse events and taking appropriate action [18]. When patients are incapable of expressing themselves, such as young children or seriously ill patients, family members become surrogate decision makers.